Puppy Love
by EyeOfWinter
Summary: Eren; a loving puppy full of life and hope. When Erwin gives him to Levi disguised as a birthday present, how is Levi going to cope taking care of a walking disaster?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello Everyone! *waves*  
Wow, this is my first contribution to the Shingeki no Kyojin fandom...I hope this turns out good.  
Anyway, thanks goes to beautiful Cho (kumozenya) on tumblr! If it wasn't for her this adorable fic wouldn't be here!  
Well, I can say with this fic that a lot of fluff will issue. Good luck.  
**

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**Chapter 1:**

There was something relaxing about a quiet apartment, Levi realised as he swirled his freshly-made tea around in the cup gripped in between his hands. No noise, no people pestering and fussing over him and no need to have to speak any more than he'd have to. It was just him and the silence that calmly accompanied him.

There were some people, for some odd reason Levi would never understand in his lifetime, who would prefer to spend their birthdays wrapped up in shitty, techno music and drinking themselves into next century. Levi grumbled into his tea and refrained himself from actually shivering as he tipped back the warm liquid in his cup into his mouth. One clear example was his fucked up not-actually-a-friend-more-like-a-retarded-no-brai ned-excuse-for-a-human-being Hanji, who for some reason found complete joy in trying to drown herself in the poisonous liquid and making a bigger dim-witted moron out of herself than normal.

She was the reason he wondered why he had friends…or frankly how he even got them in the first place.

It was times like these when Levi was able to scrape out some pitiful time for himself that were nice. Between his shitty excuse for a job, Hanji's constant need to invite herself over, and other factors that he couldn't control (one being his neighbour's apparent fetish for shitty music), he couldn't find the time to get some piece and fucking quiet for himself. But when he did, he relished it.

He had sunk himself down into the plush, leather lounge, hunched over his bronze-coloured coffee table, a colour similar to the couch. Against the opposite wall stood a flat-screen, 46inch TV, with surround-sound speakers occupying the edges of the black, glass table it sat upon. The walls were painted a smooth crème colour, which Levi found out were _really _fucking hard to clean. The other side of the wall held the small kitchenette, and down the small hallway to his right held the bathroom, his room, and the spare room. It was small and cramped as _fuck_, but it was nice.

Levi sighed to himself and leaned against the cushions of the couch, still holding the cup of tea in between his hands. He let his eyes shut as he absentmindedly traced the rim of his cup with his forefinger, feeling the exhaustion from his extra shifts at the office start to weigh down on him. Christmas time was busy as many of his co-workers took off the last couple of days of December to spend time with their families. Since Levi didn't have any family worth talking to, the soul-draining responsibility of the longer hours was thrust upon him. Levi really hated how close Christmas was to his birthday.

The late December temperatures caused snow to fall down hard outside, covering up the bitumen roads in a white blanket of ice, which was the main reason why Levi was locked up in his house this morning. From outside his window, he could barely see anything other than the white sheets of snow that were billowing down. The streets were ought to be quite a few inches deep, which refrained Levi from actually going anywhere, hence the reason why he was currently sunk down in the chair, sipping tea and actually doing nothing progressive with his sorry excuse for a life at the moment.

An enthusiastic knock on the door pulled Levi out from his unconscious thoughts and he didn't even bother to mumble his growl because he was hoping against his better judgement that it _wasn't fucking Hanji_. He trudged up to his door and pulled it open without even bothering to look through the peephole because he already knew against his hopes who it was.

His fears were confirmed as he opened his door to Hanji shoving a Christmas-wrapped box out towards him, greeting him with that shit-eating grin of hers. Her scarlet hair was pulled back into a ponytail, with little bits of white snowflakes decorating the top of her head and the lens of her glasses that were hooked underneath a couple of strands of her hair.

"Happy Birthday motherfucker," she grinned, already pushing past Levi into his apartment. His glared followed her as she threw her coat onto the couch, turning her head around to continue giving him that shit-eating grin of hers.

"I don't have any alcohol," he lied, placing the oddly-weighted box down on the table near the door. "Get out."

"Yeah, yeah," Hanji chirped, pushing up the sleeves of her sweater and making her way to the kitchenette where Levi stashed his variety of wines and bourbon whiskey bottles in the top cupboard. Hanji took down the first bottle and grabbed two wine glasses, making her way back to the table.

Levi grumbled a string of insults under his breath, glaring at Hanji as she giggled at his foul mouth. He spared a glance to the crudely-wrapped gift he had placed on the table, raising an eyebrow at the colourful red and green wrapping paper with the words 'Merry Christmas' scribbled along every sheet in cursive, gold writing. "You got the theme wrong, shitty glasses."

Hanji just laughed again, seemingly unaffected as always by his insults. She opened up the wine and poured a generous amount into each of the glasses, taking her own and plonking down into the creaky, wooden seat, which let out an uncomfortable groan under her weight. "It's close enough," she said, taking a huge gulp of the wine. "Besides, it's not even my gift. Erwin got it for you; I don't even know what's in the fucking thing."

"How sweet."

After a slight pause from Hanji, Levi suddenly noticed how freakishly wide her eyes were and how creepily she was eying him. "We should do something today," she said, swirling the red liquid around in her cup, giving him a coy grin.

"Fuck no," Levi growled, turning away from her and shutting the front door, stopping anymore of the cold, winter wind from blowing into his apartment.

Hanji shrugged, seeming to notice that the conversation had ended and took that as an invitation to launch into a yabbering speech about her work in neurobiology instead, which Levi promptly ignored. She went on and on about how she conducted _this _experiment and found _these _results, but honestly, Levi didn't give a fuck about what she was doing or whose brain she was messing with, so long as she didn't proceed to go and cut his up to do the same thing.

He grabbed Hanji's coat off from the couch and picked up his half-empty cup of tea off the coffee table where he left it when Hanji had decided to rock up. He hung the coat up neatly on the coat-hanger near his door and continued down to the kitchen so he could at least not be forced to talk to her as she continued onto another topic of discussion that he couldn't be bothered to recognise. He tipped the cold tea out in the sink and flicked on the switch for the kettle, leaning back against the counter as he waited for the water to boil. He could faintly hear Hanji still chatting away in his living room over the kettle, and was clearly able to hear the loud and slurred "Leeeevi…?" that emitted from the room over the hiss of the kettle once it was done. He sighed, pulling the kettle off the heat and turning the corner into the living room.

Hanji was still at the table, and it seemed like she hadn't broken anything yet, which Levi was fucking grateful for. The two glasses of wine that had been previously full were now drained of the red liquid, and Hanji was now re-filling one of them, scrutinizing the Christmas-wrapped box on the opposite side of the table, which Levi swore had moved closer to the edge of the table.

"Levi…" Hanji mumbled, not taking her eyes off the box. "Levi, I think the box moved."

Levi gave her a stoic glare. "Yes, you shit-licker. Boxes move when you touch them, congratufuckinglations."

"No, Levi…it moved on its _own_…"

Levi narrowed his gaze, muttering a low, but audible "You're drunk, you fucking imbecile," but walking over to the table anyway. True, Hanji never could control her liquor, but she didn't hallucinate.

He leaned over the table next to Hanji, eying the box and she took another sip of the wine in her hand. Something poked underneath the box, and Levi went to grab it, pulling out a yellow, rectangular envelop out from underneath the weight of the box. Hanji cooed at it, and Levi mumbled a few words under his breath, opening the birthday card out of the envelope. It was mainly blank on the front, besides the handmade-looking emblem of a brown shield with a pair of wings painted delicately on the front. One half of them were completely white, whereas the other pair was coloured in a deep, royal blue. Levi took a small millisecond to admire the handiwork, before flipping open the card.

Inside, Erwin's handwriting only spelt out four words: _Take care of him_. The only other thing on the card was Erwin's name scribbled on the bottom, but other than that the card was empty. Levi raised an eyebrow, before letting out a small noise of disapproval and tossing the card down to Hanji's eagerly-curious hands.

Levi continued to glare at the box, wondering what the hell Erwin meant by the stupid card. He knew he could just tear the wrapping paper off the damn thing and be done with it, but he was kind of worried what would be underneath it all if he did, not that he'd mention it to anyone. Hanji had finished being dazed by the card and continued to stare at the box with him. His idea for tea forgotten, Levi went to peel back a lone strip of the paper on the box that stuck out the side when a low noise came from inside.

Levi's eyes widened. _If he put a fucking bomb in there or something…_

Hanji's eyes widened with his as she put down her cup of wine to the side, leaning forward to tear the loose strip away. In a punctured hole in the side of the box that was revealed, a blue-green eye peered out, examining the apartment. Levi's eyes widened as that eye settled upon him, which then preceded a string of excited yapping and whining from whatever _thing _was inside.

Levi and Hanji both stayed silent for a few seconds, listening to whatever was in the box scratch and whine from inside. Hanji gripped her chin in thought, her dazed eyes locking on her nose as her eyebrows scrunched together. Levi just watched her, his steel grey eyes trying to burn a hole into her head as she finally brightened up.

"Oh right! I forgot to mention Erwin's dog had puppies a couple of months ago!"

Levi growled and back handed her, causing her to stumble into the lamp in front of her, which promptly fell over at the slightest nudge…so much for not breaking anything.

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**Wow...I made Hanji an alcoholic...how the hell had that happened?**  
**I hope everyone enjoyed this, I should have the next chapter up soonish.**

**Ciao!**


	2. Chapter 2

**OMG soon wasn't suppose to mean three weeks I am so freaking sorry.  
Thank you everyone for putting up with my shit. School is being a bitch at the moment and I've got all my assignments and tests due in the next two weeks, so I really hope I can put one out before then.**

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**Chapter 2:**

"Ah, so I'm guessing you got my gift," Erwin's smirk could be heard through the phone, and Levi sent a heat-filled glare to the coffee table in front of him, hoping Erwin could feel the hatred of his gaze through the silence he provided with him.

Turns out Erwin had sent him a fucking puppy out of all things. The brat, not looking more than about ten weeks old, was a deep, brown-furred German Sheppard cross Collie, with the blue-green eyes that Levi had noticed before when he was trapped in the box. Hanji was currently occupying him nearby, cooing and nuzzling the creature. He seemed quite noisy, barking and panting and letting out little whines at everything whether it moved or not. He was also really hyperactive. It turns out he was sleeping throughout the entire trip to Levi's house, and was now using all his pent up energy exploring Levi's apartment, bouncing and slipping around on the polished floorboards and pulling himself up onto Levi's furniture. At one point, he came around the side of the couch to where Levi sat, offering him a tilted head and a curious gaze, but Levi only had to send him a pointed glare before he'd whine and back away with his tail tucked between his legs.

He turned his attention back to Erwin, who was currently chuckling to himself over the phone like it was some fantastic prank he just pulled that left Levi confused and angry. "I'm not keeping the fucking brat. I can't believe you gave me a literal shit-licker."

Erwin laughter quietened down as he sighed through the phone. "Levi, I'm asking this as a favour. He was the only one of the litter I wasn't able to sell."

A loud bark and the sound of something crashing perked at his ears. Levi sent a pointed look towards Hanji, who had retreated to the laundry to grab a broom to clean up the broken remains of a vase. The glass of the lamp was still shattered along the ground, and the dog was hidden underneath the chair, barking madly at the remains of the vase that had joined the mess.

"Yeah, and I can see why. Let's rejoice for humanity regaining some fucking not-so-common sense." Levi growled, shifting the phone to his other ear to try and block out the sound of the shitty dog's barking. "Just give it to Hanji; she's already bonded with the critter."

"Can't!" Hanji called, emerging from the laundry with one of Levi's many brooms gripped in her hands. She went to where the glass and broken pottery were spilled across the wooden floorboards, sweeping up the remains. "My apartment doesn't allow pets."

The shitty brat of an animal had now started barking at the broom, sneaking up to it and swiping out a paw before retreating underneath the table to continue barking at it. Hanji, who seemed to find the whole thing absolutely fucking hilarious, tried and failed to muffle her giggles at the dog's actions as she swept, bending down to stroke his fur every once and a while.

Levi massaged his temple with one hand, keeping a harsh grip on the phone with the other. "Why are you giving _me _the dim-witted animal?"

"Because," Erwin noted, with amusement in his voice. "It's the closest thing I can get you to a woman."

"It's not even a literal bitch."

"Precisely."

Levi chose to ignore whatever Erwin meant by that statement. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, not before spotting some of the brown fur from the dog coating his floor. He growled into the phone harshly, causing the dog's ears to prick up towards him from his current position behind the coat hanger. "The little fucker's already malted on my floor."

"Oh, yeah. Those breeds tend to shed a lot of fur…" Levi swore he saw red at Erwin's words as he gripped the phone so tightly he was afraid he might crush it in between his hands. "Knowing the breed of his mother, he'll be quite energetic, so you'll need to take him for lots of walks…"

"Are you fucking _kidding me_ right now?!"

"…he's pretty bright too, so it'd be pretty easy to teach him some basic commands, which you'll have to do anyway otherwise he'll get bored and probably tear up your house in that boredom."

Levi went pale, blinking rapidly at Erwin's words. _Holy fuck. What does he mean by 'tear up the house'…?_

Erwin went quiet for a few moments. "Levi, are you there?"

"Yeah…" Levi mumbled, vacating his eyes down to the floor.

The dog had slipped under the coffee table, and was now rolled on his back and gazing up at Levi with his bright, turquoise eyes. Levi didn't even know if it was possible for a dog to have such an exquisite and unique eye colour; not entirely green, yet not entirely blue at the same time. The dog cocked his head to the side, and Levi could hear his tail drag along the wooden floors. He rolled back onto his stomach, letting out a whine and resting his head between his paws, gazing up at Levi with those eyes. He noted with amusement how only the dog's left ear stuck up, whereas his right flopped into his face.

"You'll have to get him used to collars and leashes. I already gave you a collar with his name tag and your address. You've got it, right?"

Levi looked down to the coffee table, where the green collar _had _sat. The dog had pulled it down from the coffee table and was currently chewing at one of the edges of the buckle. He seemed to realise Levi's gaze on him and met it, letting out a challenging growl around the piece of fabric in his mouth. Levi scowled and reached down for the other end, but the mutt took that as an excuse for a challenge and started attempting to tug it out of Levi's strong grip. After a harsh tug and a glare, the dog let out a whine and a narrowed glare, before scampering off, probably looking for something else to chew on.

"Yeah, I got it…" Levi held the collar in front of him between the tips of his fingers. He narrowed his glare on the collar, specifically on the other end where the dog had left his gloopy slobber soaked into the green fabric. The name tag itself was shaped in the form of a key, with the dog's name, _Eren,_ engraved on one side, and Levi's phone number and address engraved on the other. Levi spared another look at the opposite end of the collar, cringing and supressing a shudder at the sight. "I'm going to have to put this on him, won't I?" He could hear the emotional pain in his voice.

"Only if you keep him," Erwin's smile was audible in his voice, as if he already knew Levi's answer.

Levi sighed, turning his head to the side when the dog, Eren, waltzed into his peripheral vision. Eren sat obediently, his tail wagging happily behind him. In his muzzle, gripped between his teeth, was the latest newspaper of the week that Levi _swore _was on top of the kitchen counter before. It was torn up on both ends and ripped down one edge, a few sheets seemed to be missing, and a trail of torn paper seemed to lead into his kitchen, but the dog just looked so fucking _proud _of himself with his eyes that seemed to sparkle in happiness that Levi couldn't help but let one of the sides of his mouth upturn in a slight half-smile at the dog's stupidity.

"Okay," Levi said, returning to his passive expression. "I'll keep him for now, but if he majorly screws up _anything, _I'm sending him back."

Levi could practically feel Erwin's smugness that seeped through the phone so thickly he was convinced he'd be able to cut through it with a knife. "Alright," Erwin smiled. "Remember the things I told you though."

"I fucking hate you."

He could hear Erwin's laughter and thoroughly amused voicing of "Happy Birthday!" before Levi clicked off and tossed the phone lightly across the coffee table. Hanji's amused snort sounded from behind him, and he twisted in her seat to find her leaning over the edge of the couch, giving him one of her amused, shit-eating grins. Levi only scowled and got up from the sofa, bypassing Hanji and grabbing the broom from where she left it propped up against the wall.

"So…you're keeping him?" Hanji smirked as she flopped down into the creaky, wooden, dining table chair, cradling her half-empty glass of wine in her hand as she sent amused glances his way.

"So what?" Levi grumbled, sweeping around the hallways and near the coffee table where Eren's fur had already starting shedding in little clumps. Eren poked his paw underneath the table to swing toward the broom as Levi passed by, who let out a 'tch' and continued on, Eren following on his heels.

"Awww, look at him Levi! He's so cute!" Hanji cooed, watching the whole scene from her position at the table.

Levi looked down to Eren at his heels, who looked back up at him when he realised Levi had stopped moving. His tail wagged excitedly and he stuck tongue out, tilting his head to the side and letting his ear flop in front of one of his eyes. Levi smirked and let out a hum, before continuing to clean the kitchen.

Hanji chuckled, drowning the rest of the drink in her hand. "Well, I'm off." She said after she swallowed the remaining drops of wine.

Levi stopped his sweeping and turned to her, giving her an incredulous look. "You're seriously not fucking shit-brained enough to go out, _in this weather _after you've downed basically half of my wine bottle, _by yourself_?!"

Hanji smirked, amused, and waved a hand. "I'm taking a cab, you _asshole_," she laughed. Pulling back the curtain, she peered outside to where the snowstorm had reduced to a light fall. "Besides," she continued, hiccupping in the middle. "They should have cleared the roads by now."

She tossed her keys to Levi, who caught them in his hands. She smirked and grabbed her coat, slipping her arms into the warm sleeves and sending him a mock salute. "I'll be back for my car in the morning, _Captain_."

She waved him off as she headed out the door, shutting it loudly behind her, leaving only Eren and Levi behind. As if the dog could sense it, he knelt down around Levi's heels, wagging his tail in the air and bouncing around on his feet, as if literally begging for Levi's attention. Levi huffed, putting down the broom for the moment and making his way to the coffee table where he left the dog's collar, Eren following promptly at his heels. Levi grabbed the collar, trying to ignore to cold slobber at one end, and used it to rope Eren closer to him so he could buckle it around his neck. He tried to squirm his way out of the confinement, but Levi was quick and was able to lock the collar around his neck before he could manoeuvrer his way around it.

Levi's effort to put the collar on Eren, however, proved fruitless as he easily was able to struggle out of it, letting it fall onto the floor with a clatter. Levi gave him a deadpanned glare and Eren gave him that stupid happy look in return, sticking his tongue out and wagging his tail enthusiastically.

"I can already tell you're going to be such a shitty pain in my ass," Levi muttered to the dog.

Eren replied with a prompt lick to his hand.

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**I know nothing about snow...and it's looking nothing like Christmas over here...  
I know nothing about puppies either...I'm not allowed one...*sniff***


End file.
